The Yoorrook Justice Commission has heard from descendants of settler colonialists involved in the theft of land, massacres and the Half-Caste Act.
The Chair of Yoorrook, Wergaia Wamba Wamba Elder and Professor Eleanor Bourke urged all Victorians to watch the hearing and listen to the evidence presented.
"When we understand what has happened in the past and how this impacts the present, we can create a better future and have a better understanding between all Victorians," she said.
Peter Sharp, a descendent of Australia's second prime minister, Alfred Deakin, gave evidence at Victoria's Indigenous truth-telling commission on Wednesday.
The commission heard that while serving as the Colony of Victoria's Chief Secretary in the 1880s, Alfred Deakin sponsored the Aboriginal Protection Amendment Act, also known as the 'Half-Caste Act'.
It ultimately allowed the forced removal of 'mixed-race' children, now known at the Stolen Generations.
"The 1886 Act ... its intention was the total elimination of Aboriginal culture and population," Mr Sharp told the enquiry.
"He [Alfred Deakin] was prepared to be absolutely ruthless, and especially if he could get away with it ... He grew up with this vision before him, that this land was going to be occupied solely by the invading race."
Wurundjeri and Ngurai Illum Wurrung Yoorrook Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter spoke about the impact the Stolen Generations had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
"That [was] the start of the Stolen Generations and I just want to make the point that the act was so devastating and dehumanising for our people," Mrs Hunter said.
Elizabeth Balderstone, the owner of a property in Gippsland on which the Warrigal Creek massacre occurred in 1843, also gave evidence.
Mrs Balderstone lives a short walk from a water bank where up to 150 of Gunaikurnai people were murdered by settlers in apparent retribution for the killing of Ronald Macalister, the nephew of NSW pastoralist Lachlan McAllister.
Since taking over the property, Mrs Balderstone says she has ensured the area is fenced off for native re-vegetation and the preservation of the site and has built a relationship with Traditional Owners.
"I think we have all got a duty to do it, as Victorians and Australians. To look at where we live. Investigate the story of European colonisation. Think about what it meant for the people that were there and what happened.
"I hope our role is just to care for it gently and quietly and be led by First Nations people, Traditional Owners, on how to look after it," she told the inquiry.
Mrs Balderstone urged more non-Indigenous Australians to engage in truth-telling.
"Not telling the truth is never going to get any of us anywhere and it’s going to sort of hold things, and stall things," she told the inquiry.
